


wrapped in pink so soft and warm (you had me wrapped around your finger)

by astrangetypeofchemistry



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Dad!Adrien, Dadrien, Dead Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Gen, Kid Fic, Parent Fic, Silver Lining Zine Piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:16:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28863174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangetypeofchemistry/pseuds/astrangetypeofchemistry
Summary: Adrien is a parent, working hard to make sure he doesn't repeat the mistakes of his father.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Emma Agreste
Comments: 6
Kudos: 44





	wrapped in pink so soft and warm (you had me wrapped around your finger)

**Author's Note:**

> my piece for the silver lining adrien zine. leftover zines are still available to buy!

The best and worst day of Adrien Agreste’s life happens on September 18 th , 2023. He’s in a delivery room, overwhelmed by the flurry of doctors and nurses rushing around his wife as she lays on the bed. She smiles at him when their eyes meet, but he sees the fatigue and the struggle to hold on warring inside of her need to be with him.

“It’s okay,” he tells her, grabbing her hand and pressing a kiss to her palm. “We talked about this.”

And they had, just not the way Adrien had wanted them to. She’d called the shots regarding the pregnancy, sure and confident in the things she said even when he didn’t feel it. 

He thinks somewhere, somehow, he’s still paralyzed in the moment he found out his wife could die in labor.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever leave that moment.

She smiles back at him, squeezes his hand, and he can feel just how weak her grip is. Her eyes fill with a determination that he never forgets, she sits up a little straighter, and he knows that this time she means business.

Fifteen minutes after her energy burst, Adrien Agreste becomes a father.

Seventeen minutes after, he becomes a widower.

* * *

Emma Agreste is fragile. She fits in the crook of his arm and still leaves room behind, her tiny arms flap helplessly at the air, and her eyes blink like there’s no guarantee they’ll open again. Adrien is terrified in every minute; she feels so delicate, he’s afraid to touch her. She stares at him helplessly and it makes him helpless, weak at the knees, like any minute now she’ll realize he doesn’t know what he’s doing and she’ll resort to crying.

He’s scared of the life that’s nestled in his arms and heart and home, dependent on him in a way he doesn’t remember being. He’s worried about doing the wrong thing, about what’ll happen if he just doesn’t hear her cry and something happens, if he doesn’t give her enough tummy time and then her head doesn’t shape properly, and is he holding her enough to properly bond with her?

So he’s always there, always in the same room as her. His laptop in his lap and his daughter right next to him, her eyes are closed as she dreams about baby things and his open as they alternate between his work and his child. He thinks someone somewhere tells him that he’s doing that too much, that she’ll end up being far too dependent on him and she won’t let him sleep alone when she’s older. They say she’ll never get in the habit of being alone.

He tells them he doesn’t want her to have to.

* * *

She takes after her mother, in her fiery attitude and her passionate demeanor. Her eyes dance, with joy, with anger, with love, and she flutters around his heart and home like a graceful ballerina who was always meant to be there.

He knows her mother would laugh at the comparison, claim that she herself had never been graceful. But he sees the similarity in their two movements, how his daughter carries herself with the flow of laughter in her every step the same way her mother did. He revels in the life that his daughter gives to the wife he no longer has, how he can still see her enveloping and watching over them just from the way she’s managed to embed herself in their child.

Her grandparents are teary-eyed when Emma’s mannerisms become a carbon copy of their late daughter, and he doesn’t find himself as angry over her decision anymore. He thinks he gets it now, why she chose the life of the child she never got to meet over her own presence. He thinks he understands that if she was around, it wouldn’t be in the way her parents needed her to be. Emma, on the other hand, is. So he lets go of his bitterness, and he learns to forgive her ghost.

The burden of the world on his shoulders lightens up just a little bit more.

* * *

There’s a feistiness to her as she grows older, a no-nonsense attitude that follows every aspect of her life. She’s a trouble in her school, untameable around other adults. Doesn’t listen, or follow rules, or really calm down unless she herself feels like it.

But she melts around him, they all say, the apple of her father’s eyes, who knows it and revels in it. She’s like a saint in his presence, sitting with him and him alone, refusing to eat unless her father is there to feed her. She cries when separated from him, doesn’t sleep right unless he’s right there with her. Some say it’s ridiculous, the attachment she has to her father that’ll hurt when she loses him.

He’s glad she’s there to voice it out so he doesn’t have to. He thinks it’d be a lot more ridiculous coming from him.

But she talks to him, in the moments where it’s just them and she wants her father to know all about her day. She tells him all about the people she likes and those she doesn’t, the things she learns and the things she’s done until she’s yawning between every other word. She talks and talks until he knows things like the color of her best friend’s favorite shoes and exactly which snack item is her teachers’ favorite.

Those moments become the best part of his day.

* * *

And then comes the day where she stops talking to him, where she’s older and the idea of telling her dad everything is weird rather than necessary. There’s no burning need in her to tell him everything that’s happened, no words begging to be spilled out because she’s in his presence. He knows not to take it bitterly so he doesn’t, because he knows his daughter’s growing up, and now she’ll find someone else to be her confidant. He’d always known this would happen, and he’s had time to prepare.

But he makes sure she knows that when she needs him, he’s there. He tries to take hints and give her space when she needs it, but not too much so she knows her dad is still around. He thinks that balance is where his own messed up, where giving his teenage son personal space became just completely neglecting him. He’s terrified both of being overbearing and of being absent, but he tries not to let his daughter pick up on his fears as she tries to find her confidants out in the world.

She comes back, lying in his bed in the middle of the night in tears, because her heart can’t handle the strain of arguing with the people she’s started trusting with her secrets. He holds her with all the love he can muster and listens to her, the one thing he’d always loved to do, not instructing or advising but just listening, fulfilling this vital role in her life one last time.

The day after she’s up and at ‘em with another smile and a brand new slate to her life, and he hopes she understands that she’s always got him on her side. No matter what.

He thinks she gets it from the way she asks if they can make weekly dinners a regular thing.

* * *

The most bittersweet day of his life is the day his daughter moves out.

She’s packing up the last of her belongings haphazardly, an eye kept on the clock so she doesn’t miss her appointments. Every fifteen minutes Adrien offers his help, trying his best to keep his smile from wavering, and every time she puts up a hand, the other on her belly as she tries her best to finish up on her own. She refuses to accept his help even now, the last time they’ll be under the same roof while living together.

It’s the last few hours she’ll spend as Miss Emma Agreste, yet still she insists on being stubborn and refusing to ask for assistance.

She is every bit her mom, and Adrien already knows he’s going to tear up during the ceremony. She looks up at him and smiles, as if she can tell that he’s already verging into emotional territory, but she makes no move towards him, still trying to effectively pack without hurrying too much.

And then the time ticks closer to when she needs to leave, and slowly she lets him take over the packing until she’s standing at the door with her phone to her ear and her foot tapping, ready to go get ready to be married. He burns the image into his brain, willing to never forget the sight of his daughter, young and ready to parent her own child and start her own life. She leaves with a quick wave, calling out that she’ll see him in a few hours.

He smiles, a little teary, as he starts labelling her boxes.

* * *

When Emma walks towards him with a big smile a few hours later, her hand outstretched to grab his arm so they can walk down the aisle together, he sends a silent thank you to Marinette. A little bit for the love she initially gave him, and a little bit for giving him his daughter. But most of his gratitude comes from the chance to be the father that he himself never had.

He likes to think that whenever she checks in on him from the afterlife, she believes he’s nailing it.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @queerinette.


End file.
